Language in Belize: Speaking Belizean Kriol

I was once told that you’re only a true Belizean if you speak Kriol. It’s the first thing you’ll hear when you arrive in Belize—the accent, the intonation, and the sentences that chop away at articles and verbs. Creole or Kriol is the lingua franca here. Like most patois tongues in the Caribbean, it has its roots in the days of slavery, when the workers in mahogany camps were exposed to English and mixed it with their own West African dialects, hence the choppy grammar and the borrowed English words.

Over time, efforts were made to ensure that Kriol was properly studied, written, and recorded as a language, thanks to the National Kriol Council, created in 1995 to promote all aspects of the Creole culture. Keeping this language going has been their goal, as a way of instilling a sense of identity and cultural pride in its people. It’s now spoken and understood by almost all Belizeans, even non-Creoles, and knowing a couple of phrases is a great way to immerse and break the ice.